


Are You Asking to be a Sail?

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [107]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Don't Try This At Home, Gen, Homelessness, Trains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 17:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10285055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: Next stop: whatever





	

**Author's Note:**

> for anon, who prompted: train au: 12's a conductor, bill's freighthopping.

Bill’s got twenty dollars and a knapsack with all her worldly possessions and a vague understanding of how America operates, and a destination. And chutzpah, she’s got that in spades.

“Kid’s got moxie,” she says under her breath, resettling the knapsack on her shoulders. She leans in to the facade of a Starbucks until the WiFi is strong enough to catch, loads a map up, and then heads off towards where someone knows someone who can give her a couch to crash on for the night.

 

* * *

“Sorry, kind of a shitshow,” the girl says. Amy? Aimee? Long bleach-blonde hair and a puff-paint, kid-craft t-shirt that says GIRL POWER.

It’s a communal house, of course it’s a shitshow. Murals and paintings and bits of things everywhere, an antique clawfoot bathtub in the hallway filled with books. Bill follows Amy/Aimee/Aymie/?? up a creaking flight of stairs, trailing a hand over the repeated scrawled-Sharpie RIGSY tags.

“So this is you,” Amy (?) says, pushing a door open. It’s a small room, mattress on the floor and milk crates for furniture and bare walls except for a small smiley face by the outlet. “Jake’s on tour with his band, he’s cool with you staying here. You got like a week, maybe. And then we’ll figure something else out.”

“Just need it for tonight,” Bill says. “Thanks.”

Amy asks if she can hug Bill - Bill shrugs - they hug, and then Aimee leaves, and then Bill’s alone. She lets her knapsack fall down to the floor. She can hear, somewhere, somebody singing. And somewhere else an electric drill. She sits down on the edge of the mattress, knees pulled up to her chin, and she breathes.

 

* * *

A decent night’s sleep and a load of laundry and some leftovers in Tupperware later, Bill’s moving on. She steps out into the sunlight - a new day - and braces her back against her knapsack, now two vegan lasagnas heavier.

She doesn’t know this city and she doesn’t know this county but she does know, in general, how to do this. Go down under the bridge, by tracks. The oogles, she can spot them by a mile.

“Trying to head west,” she says, in the vague direction of a boy with a face tattoo and dirty overalls. “Anything going out that way?”

He stares back at her blankly.

“My name’s Bill,” she says, thrusting her hand out.

He looks at it. “Chuckie.” Chucky?

“Good to meet you, Chucky. Look, I’m just trying to go, y'know, thattaway-” She hitches a thumb towards where she thinks is west. “And I’m new to the area, so I’d appreciate some help here.”

Chuckie’s got a pet rat in his vest pocket and a chip on his shoulder. “Nice shoes,” he says, sneering.

“Thanks!” she replies. She knows what he means: she’s not performing homelessness correctly. Or he thinks she’s a tourist who refuses to go native. Too clean, too cutesy. But fuck him, her lavender SBs make her happy and there’s time enough to beat them to shit. “So. Westbound trains?”

 

There’s a freight going to Ohio, close enough. Chuck(ie)(y), to his credit, guides her neatly through the hole in the chainlink fence to the railyard, gives her a boost up before swinging up beside her.

“Coal’s tricky,” he says, sitting down cross-legged up by the rim of the car. “Dangerous.”

“Yep. I know.” She slides her bag off her shoulders and lets it fall, finds a half-comfortable spot to sit down in. “So you’re headed my way?”

“Just headed out,” he says, leaning back, tempting fate.

 

* * *

The train pulls in to Fuck Knows Where, Ohio. Chucky(?) shakes her hand and then slinks off. And she’s alone.

She catches out in the railyard, after some brief advice from a girl who’s nodding hard and slurring her words.

“Thanks,” Bill says. She hugs the girl, feeling her slump down in her arms. “Be safe, yeah?”

She takes a running jump at a passing boxcar and hoists herself up. Bag off, feet up, she eats half a granola bar and watches the scenery pass by.

 

The train gets to Nebraska before it stops more than an hour. She wakes up, and then wakes up all the way. Legs stiff, hunger eating at her.

Someone’s coming. Guard, probably. She can’t see an exit from this angle, so she settles on looking young and dumb.

 

"I can explain" she says.

“Nice accent,” the someone says. He clicks his flashlight off before it reaches her.

“Thanks, made it myself.”

“Expat?”

“Something like that.” She tries to focus on him, and fails.

“Same here. This is a good car. Ideal, really. Way better than a grainer. You have much farther left to go?”

She can’t see him, the sun where it is, but she can tell that he’s older, inexplicably Scottish, and willing to look the other way. “A bit, yeah,” she says, heart in her mouth.

“This train’s going to Utah. After that, you need to keep going, I’ll be headed wherever. Just let me know. I’ll be in the, uh. The big choo-choo at the front.”

She grins, mostly out of panic. The stranger moves on.

 

* * *

The train hits Utah and then waits. Bill picks her bag up and puts it on, swings down off the box car and follows the train up to the engine.

“Heya,” she says, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“Hello,” the stranger says. Conductor, going by the general demeanor and the hat nestled in his halo of hair. “Are you the one in the boxcar?”

“Yep,” she says brightly.

She pauses. The conductor makes a ‘cmon up already’ motion. She climbs into the car, puts her bag between her feet.

“Next stop, whatever,” the conductor says.

The train operator is a young woman, pretty, all dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, currently rolling those eyes. “You need to stop bringing in strays,” she says.

“Says who.”

“Says me, and your employer.”

“Sounds false. Not buying it.” The conductor grins at Bill. Bill grins back.

 

* * *

“Be safe,” the operator says. She hugs the conductor.

“Fuck that,” the conductor says fondly.

Something between them, maybe, once, a long ways off. Bill settles her pack on her shoulders and looks politely away.

“You’ll take care of him,” the operator says. Almost like she means it as a threat.

“Sure, yeah,” Bill replies.

The operator kisses the conductor, and Bill looks away again.

 

* * *

They hop off, and the train pulls away, and they’re alone.

“Heading anywhere in particular?” the conductor says, breaking the silence.

“West,” she says. “To meet a girl.”

“Always good to have a destination. Well, sometimes. Maybe.”

Out in the bright sunlight of the yard, she can see him clearly. Oldish, yeah, all scattershot grey hair and an intensely lined face, but something youthful about him, and a glint in his eye. His uniform is well tended-to but worn out.

“I used to - you know, what you do - but now I’ve got a card says I’m legally allowed to,” he says. He’s got no bag or anything, just a busted coat and whatever’s in the pockets.

“Bill,” Bill says. “I mean - I’m Bill. Seems like this is a situation for first-name basis. And you?”

“The Conductor,” The Conductor says. “I’ve forgotten the rest.”

“So westward, then?”

“If you like. Maybe some stops on the way, I like those. There’s a train to Las Vegas in the morning, if you’d like to head that way.”

“Yeah. And tonight - I’m, uh - got a friend of a friend of a friend with a spare couch, could probably fit us both, if you want - like if we’re doing this, together.”

He smiles and gingerly taps her on her forearm. “I’ll follow your lead,” he says.

She grins back, and settles her pack around her shoulders, and they head off to find the nearest free WiFi so she can pull up a map of where they’re meant to go.

(“I can fix it,” he says, pulling a busted old phone out of his jacket pocket. Bright blue case, running an OS she doesn’t recognize. He flails at it for a bit and then she’s got four bars. Gift horses, mouths, etc.)


End file.
